Harry Kane has criticised the amount of withdrawals from England duty but Paul Merson has defended the players that have pulled out, including Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice
Harry Kane has criticised the amount of withdrawals from England duty but Paul Merson has defended the players that have pulled out, including Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice Harry Kane has criticised the amount of withdrawals from England duty but Paul Merson has defended the players that have pulled out, including Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice
Paul Merson has defended Arsenal stars Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice after they were among those criticised by England captain Harry Kane for pulling out of international duty.
Saka and Rice are among nine players to have withdrawn from the England squad ahead of Lee Carsley’s final two matches in charge, with Thomas Tuchel set to officially take over in the new year.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Aaron Ramsdale, Levi Colwill and Jarrad Branthwaite have also pulled out, citing injury problems. However, Kane is not happy with the number of withdrawals.
“I think England comes before anything,” Kane told ITV. “It comes before club and it is the most important thing you play as a professional footballer. Gareth was hot on that and he wasn’t afraid to make decisions if that started to drift from certain players.
“It’s a shame this week obviously. Yeah, I think it’s a tough period of the season and maybe that’s been taken advantage of a little bit. I don’t really like it if I’m totally honest. I think as I just said there England comes before anything, any club situation.
“The joy to play for England. I think Gareth brought that back. Every camp, people were excited to come, every camp people wanted to play for England and, yeah, that’s the most important thing.”
However, Merson has sided with the players who withdrew, insisting the likes of Saka, Rice and Palmer are actually injured. When asked about Kane’s comments, Merson told Sky Sports News: “Yeah, I can understand that but at the same time Rice wasn’t fit, Saka came off with about 10, 15 minutes to go in probably a must-win game for Arsenal [against Chelsea ] at the time.
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“Palmer wasn’t fit, you saw him hobbling after. It is a bit about timing and the circumstances… obviously, the manager’s [Carsley] last game, the new manager [Tuchel] ain’t there, you can put all this stuff together and you can put two and two together and come up with five.
“I’ll go with the players on this one, but again, this is a big football match. We need to win this football match to get back to the big table with the big nations because otherwise we’re going to play these countries again and that’s when you get withdrawals at the same time.”
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